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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670406">stasis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowmints/pseuds/snowmints'>snowmints</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hollow Knight (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Featured: A quiet nod to THK's gradual recovery, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Second Person, Suicidal Ideation, depersonalisation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:20:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowmints/pseuds/snowmints</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is far greater, this elevated version of a you you never were, but still firm. Still here, looking over a city empty enough to echo with its own hollowness. Still here, guarded by a trinity of the once slumbering. Still here, rigid-shouldered and empty-eyed, hard stone worn down by the hands of rain."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel &amp; Hornet, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel &amp; The Pale King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stasis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The rain weighs heavy upon the City of Tears. You begin to think.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Looking at the other self that’s been crafted for you is almost unbearable. It is far greater, this elevated version of a you you never were, but still firm. Still here, looking over a city empty enough to echo with its own hollowness. Still here, guarded by a trinity of the once slumbering. Still here, rigid-shouldered and empty-eyed, hard stone worn down by the hands of rain. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The rain washes gently over two dissonant mirror images, staring at one another-- a memorial and an afterthought, both cradled between the slack jaws of something long dead. Though you know this kingdom promises to gasp with life anew, here in the city it is dead and quiet still. It makes the passing of thoughts easier.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Three dreamers and a centrepiece, but picture this; the patron present, carved from the same stone, drowning under the same rain. You can see it in your mind’s eye; he somehow dwarfs you all. He somehow makes the piece a celebration rather than a memorial. A testament to bravery and sacrifice rather than a half-hearted apology masquerading as art.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But he is not here. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Softly, without event, it occurs to you that you have been killed. That you have been born for the very death he fed you, shackled to its taste so firmly it was all you ever dared to know. He has murdered you in every way that matters; he has made you his the way one makes his a pawn; he has reshaped your love into a puppet’s obedience; he has made you to be his, and now he is gone, you are too lost to be anything else; he has buried you in his own will; and despite everything, what hurts most is that he’s never bothered to sign his name on the order for this coffin he’s built you, carved with precision to the silhouette of the you you wanted to be for him. He has killed you, but He is God and Father, and His sins do not exist at all, let alone exist enough to require absolving in the first place. Perhaps you are the sin that dared to fail Him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span>(And perhaps you ought to wipe yourself clean and erase any tell that you were ever more than dead, and if that fails? Perhaps it’s you who should find a better coffin, one that’ll keep you this time, one that’ll hold you and suffocate you and kill you truly and </span><em><span>then </span></em><span>it will be better, </span><em><span>then </span></em><span>you’ve done right to punish the sinner, then </span><em><span>you </span></em><span>are absolved and forgiven and you are nothing, nothing, </span><em><span>nothing. </span></em><span>It will be </span><em><span>quiet, </span></em><span>at last,</span> <span>in this head that was never meant to make noise. And see? </span><em><span>See</span></em><span>? He was right. Look at you, misshapen and lost without him to command you. Look at you, cracked and splintered. Where from, this audacity to continue living in your own treachery? </span><em><span>Look. At. You</span></em><span>.</span><em><span>)</span></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>You are another regret to be kept as separate from His Light as possible. It hurts (and hurt is a Feeling, like soft clawing at your chest that turns hungry and sharp). You cannot blame anyone but yourself even now for daring to be. And you </span>
  <em>
    <span>love </span>
  </em>
  <span>him still, which hurts, too. He did not love you. Now you have seen love (and love is a Blessing, like a soothing balm of warmth), and love would not allow for what you have suffered. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>These days, you even have it in you to be angry (a relief; fire coursing through void, marrying it until there is no component but something simmering and vicious). Facing you, the statue in the City of Tears stays ever complacent and regal. It hurts less to be angry than it does to despair (this one, you’ve always known. It is Everything. It is the you inside of you, yearning for the warmth of love). </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Anger is vindicating- and yes, it is healthy. You trust your sister. She says it is good for you to begrudge your killer. That you can be angry. That it is progress. </span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>You draw a silent breath and the void in you calms. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The statue is still there. Taunting. You want to give in. You want to pretend you can be the stone itself, devoid of everything that makes your flawed being persist, pressed into the heart of something dead and left there to fossilise into a Thing he would have been satisfied with. To say to it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Take this body, then, and make it as yours. Make it cold and serviceable, make it right. Fix it into something useful.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But the you you never were only looks unto the city with its unseeing gaze. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>You pick up your new nail. A humble ore, but sturdy. New. You don’t wish to concern your sister with your tardiness.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>You look upon The Hollow Knight one last time. There are better names for it. Unmoving eulogy. Tool feigning functionality. It is still there, everpresent as the gentle film of rain cleansing the city. Of course it is.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But you are here too. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The blade is heavy in your hand, unbalanced and clumsy.  You start to make your way home. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>;w; Writing this was both cathartic and painful all at once. Thank you for getting to the end and reading, as always, and I'm ever delighted to read your comments and thoughts. &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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